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ADAPTATION AND RECONSTRUCTION
ADAPTATION AND RECONSTRUCTION hundreds of persons who are unable to imagine plots or who, at least, are unable to imagine plots worthwhile, turn to adaptations that they may become participants in the wealth that is supposed to be gained through photoplay work. They are not authors : they are unable to conceive a plot, yet they seek to gain a reputation as writers on the strength of the imagination of others. In a word, lacking creative ability, they seek to become dealers in second-hand material. It is conceivable that a person may be a good adapter and yet be unable to devise an original theme. There are not lacking on the speaking stage examples of this fact, men expert in stagecraft, who must devote their abilities to elaborating the work of the more imaginative. There are such, but they are few as compared with the real authors, and against this lack of creative imagination they offer an almost uncanny knowledge of the tricks of the trade. But photoplay is not the speaking stage and methods differ. Few theaters save the Jargon houses maintain stock dramatists. In the studio there is always a staff of writers who must be able to write or reconstruct. It is not necessary to maintain a staff of persons who can adapt with unusual skill. In a word there is not likely to be a demand for adaptors, save for those exceptional persons who can do this work with unusual skill. The preference is for persons who can write or adapt as occasion demands. The only hope of the free lance who cannot write original material is to get in touch with the few studios that give out their adaptations. It is possible to get an order now and then if the adapter is in the same city as the studio, but the opportunities are so limited and the pay is so small that it will not pay the unimaginative to study adaptation alone. An understanding of the difference between the free lance and, the staff writer will help in appraising the situation. The staff man is employed by the studio. He knows what the studio has in the way of scenery and natural locations, he knows what the studio will be willing to do in the way of building new sets or sending a field company out, he knows the stars whom it is desired to feature and precisely the type of plays in which they appear to the best advantage and he knows the supporting players and their capabilities. He knows the style of story preferred by each director and the style of story that is preferred by the business heads. In a word he has the advantage of being able to give the studio precisely what it wants, working from knowledge and not from guesswork or deduction. If he has a costume play he may change the period of that play to suit costumes on hand or easily obtainable. If the company is going to Cuba or Nova Scotia he can write or change stories to fit the new location. From this it would appear that the free lance writer has but small chance to sell his stories. He would have, were it not for the fact that no one man or small body of men can supply sufficient variety within the production limits. Each man has his own peculiar mannerisms of thought. He is apt to write stories of a general type, no matter how he seeks to vary the idea. To . obtain variety the free lance writers are invited to submit. The best of the work offered is purchased to give change from the studio-produced scripts just as a coffee may be blended or real whiskey may be added to a synthetic product to improve the flavor. The staff cannot think of all the good ideas nor of a sufficiently wide variety of ideas. They are there to insure a supply of scripts for the directors, no matter what may be the supply from the outside, but they are also there to get into practical shape the stories that come in from the outside; good in idea but impossible in form. Naturally they must be both writers and reconstruction men. It is hardly possible that room will be found for a man who cannot write his own stories in an emergency, and the editor knows that the man who cannot think of stories for himself lacks the proper imagination to grasp the stories of others. Most staff writers are selected from the ranks of the men who can do the best average work on the outside, whose submitted ideas are seldom below a certain standard. 8. Adaptations are another matter. There is absolutely nothing to be gained by purchasing adaptations from the free lances. The staff man can write to suit the studio more exactly than can the outsider. If an adaptation is to be made he is told precisely how it is to be made and he turns in precisely that sort of a script. If the story is taken from American history, the studio has several copies. It would be foolish to let a staff man lie idle and give some outsider twenty-five or fifty dollars for the story of how Washington crossed the Delaware. If it is standard fiction the studio probably knows of it. Some manufacturers even have men who watch for the expiration of copyright on desirable books that they may use them at the first possible moment that it can be done without cost. If it is copyrighted material, the company prefers to deal directly with the holder of the rights and not through some outside author who may have purchased a faulty assignment or who may have avoided it through failure to make registration within the proper time. This chapter, then, does not take up adaptation as a subject to be pursued as a separate study, but aims to give some hints on adaptation to the author who may be called upon to do this as a part of his more creative work. Adaptation is the making of a novel, short story or play into photoplay form. Reconstruction is the rearrangement into good form of a faulty play. The first step in adaptation is to get thoroughly acquainted with the story, its people and the author's mode of thought. Not only must the author's language be read, but the characters must be realized. You must note how they act in the conditions shown that you may make their thought and action correct in the scenes not shown as action in the book, but which must be done into action for the screen. The adaptor must form a clean-cut and vivid image of each character, its modes of thought, appearance and character. He must know thus intimately each of the characters and not merely those who take the leading parts. In a book the author casually writes that Mary feels under obligation to Jim because he saved her life at the beach last summer. This is not told in photoplay in a leader. It is shown as a part of the story, and unless you know just how Jim would act in the role of lifesaver you may make him a strutting fool instead of a modest hero or the reverse. The next step is to become thoroughly familiar with the plot. There will be a main plot and probably a lot of side material that is permissible in a story but which will clog the main plot in photoplay. You must isolate these from the main plot and then consider their value in relation to the main theme. If the matter must go in, you must seek to mike it a part of the main plot and not complication. Often much of this material may be dropped with decidedly good results. An example of this is offered in the story of "Uncle Tom's Cabin, " in which the dramatist generally discards the story of Cassie and Legree for want of space. Dissect the narrative from the plot as you would the flesh from the bone. With the plot bared, select only that which will form a direct and complete story, remembering that the more story you have to tell, the less footage you will be permitted for action. If you so form your plot that you require two reels of explanation for a third reel of action the proportion is too great. Much of the plot you. may discover to be in almost casual allusion, but capa, ble of yielding rich action. With the discarding of some of the minor plot you may be able to eliminate minor characters, as well, without detriment to the story. 13. Having decided what you will retain, arrange the material in chronological order. It is seldom, if ever, that the plot will run in exact continuity in a book and seldom in a play. The heroine snuggles against the hero's manly shoulder and sighs: "Ah, Reginald, how the soft, warm air with its tang of the se; reminds one of that glorious night we met in Venice. " "In Venice!" cries the startled Reginald. "Then you are—?" "The veiled lady, " she confirms, as she burrows a little deeper into his collar bone. This is the first you have heard of the matter. This story is supposed to have started only six months before and it develops that this all happened some time previously when Reginald drove off a horde of beggars that were pestering the American Signorina, but this must presently be used to explain the advent of the haughty Venetian nobleman who met the girl while she was there, and so the story starts in Venice a couple of years before the author starts to tell about happenings. You must arrange all these events in the order of their occurrence, even though you may plan to make some of them fact visions. It is tietter not to use visions, but even if you do, start with the fact in its proper place in the chronology. The fiction author is free of the fetters of time. Sometimes fact gains in importance through temporary suppression. It is easy, when this is recalled, to have some character tell it all in the form of a narrative. The author is telling his entire story in words. He can waste a few to orient the time. The adapter must be economical of his leaders if his action is to be something more than a few illustrations of quotations from the book. To take a compact example, let us consider the address of Spartacus to the Gladiators, familiar to most schoolboys. The author first draws a picture of night in the Coliseum. In their dens the wild beasts lie in uneasy slumber. In the apartments of the gladiators Spartacus steps forth to address the men whom he captains. One of his first speeches is to the effect that they do well to call him chief who for many years has met in the arena men and beasts and remains unconquered. This single speech takes us from the moment over a vista of years. Almost immediately he brings us back with "Today, in the arena. " He tells of his killing his boyhood friend and appeals to his fellows to follow his lead in a dash for freedom from a condition little better than the beasts in the dens. To sketch the action as it runs we would get something like this: • It is night in the quarters of the gladiators. • • Spartacus, their chief, addresses them. • • He tells how he has gained his leadership through his many victories. • • He speaks of the display of that afternoon. • • He slew his opponent, only to discover the friend of his boyhood days. • • He tells of that boyhood. • • Of his friendship with the other. • • Of his growth to manhood. • • Of his capture. • • He reverts to the events of the afternoon. • 11. He pleads with his followers to revolt, offering to lead them to freedom. This is the order in which the events are recited, but the adaptor, placing them in chronological order, will obtain this arrangement: 6-7-8-9-3-4-5-1-2-10-11. Here factor ten must be a vision, because it tells of something already recalled that must be shown. The rest is direct action. 16. The diagram reveals something else. This is a narration of events, but it is not a plot, because it has no end. Spartacus pleads with them to follow his leadership in a revolt, but he stops there;This is simple enough. He leads them in the revolt and wins. Supplying this omission and slightly changing the facts to suggest more strongly the story that the speech intimates rather than conveys, we would get more of a plot diagram and yet the same facts, as- • Spartacus, a young shepherd, has a friend of his own age with whom he grows up. They are inseparable friends. • • Spartacus is captured by the Romans and carried to the Capital. • • Here he is pitted in the arena against the gladiators, survivors of similar combats. • • He defeats his opponent and his life is spared. • • He becomes one of the body of gladiators retained to do battle with the captives. • • By his prowess he not only escapes defeat but becomes chief of the gladiators. • • In the course of years he meets an opponent whom. he slays. • • Raisins his visor he finds it to be his boyhood friend. • • His grief is intense. He is awakened to a sense of better things. • • He longs to return to his own land. • • That night, in the quarters, the gladiator makes an appeal to his fellows to join him in revolt. • • They agree and overthrow the guards. • 13. They fight their way through the city to freedom. From this arrangement it is a simple matter to build in incident and plot to make the story. 17. In adapting for the screen some such fragment it is necessary to seize upon the plot suggestion of every word. In a novel it is necessary to hold rigidly to the facts as given in the book if the adaptation is to be satisfactory to those who have read the book and who now come to see their ideals realized in action, but in adapting a poem or speech we must get suggestion rather than plot facts. Much can be done to build this up. Perhaps a love story may be injected. There is a girl they both loved. Now the friend with his dying breath charges Spartacus to go to her. Here we have a more interesting motive for his action than as given in nine. It is not his better nature alone, but this nature, roused by awakened love, that gives him determination. Other detail may be added. Perhaps the friend knows of Spartacus and seeks to get word to him. His jailor, an enemy to Spartacus, does not bring the message, but comes to gloat when the butchery has been done. The revolt is started by the killing of the jailor. Here an ability to plot is as desirable as in creative work, for imagination must be used to supply the bare facts. On the other hand it is better not to alter the author's plot in visualizing dramas and novels. Even a seemingly unimportant change may precipitate a succession of other changes that will completely alter the play. It should be the aim of the adaptor to preserve in the highest possible degree whatever originality of thought the author may have shown. It is unfortunate that many adaptors are so lacking in imagination that they cannot perceive this originality and reduce all adaptations to the dead level of their own mediocrity. They cannot understand subtlety of motive. They lack the quality themselves; they cannot perceive it in the work of another. They make all scripts alike whether these are original or adaptations. This holds with equal force in reconstruction. It is to be presumed that the outside script has been purchased to gain variety in the releases. If the reconstructor throws away the continuity which has been found faulty and works entirely with the synopsis, be produces a story in which the plot is slightly different but in which the style, the manner of developing the action, is precisely like the original work of the reconstructor. The continuity should be studied. The development may be poor, but if the story is at all worthwhile it is most certain that there are some good points in the action that should find their way to the screen. The reconstructor should aim to make the required changes with the least alteration of the original author's ideas that newness of treatment may also serve to give variety. 20. Adaptation and reconstruction are not simple merely because the idea is already furnished. To the contrary it is a most difficult work if the task is to be acceptably performed, for the idea must be built up without changing it, and this requires an adaptability of thought that permits the adapter to view the work from the angle of the author and not from his original point of view. If the work of the adapters is studied it will be found that the men who are most successful are those who are themselves author d of consequence, for these are most likely to have the mental capacity that permits them to respect the work of another. There are vandals who would. tint the flesh of marble statues and color the draperies to improve their appearance, reducing them to the artistic level of the nearly extinct cigar store Indian. There are adapters who believe that the true science of the art is found in substituting their own for the author's ideas. They take a part of his plot, add some ideas of their own and develop the whole in a mechanical and rather stupid way. The true reconstructor is like the photographer who takes the underdeveloped plate and intensifies it. He adds nothing. He merely brings out more clearly what already was there. The true adaptor simply transfers the idea from the printed page to the screen. He does not change the drawing nor alter the coloring. His is purely themechanical act of transference, but he does it with the loving care of the artisan and not the mere laborer.